Saturday Morning Bores

Growing up in the 1990s, I did my fair share of channel surfing when different networks had shows that I felt like watching. So I'll be looking at some Saturday morning shows that never seemed to appeal to me.

The late seasons of The Real Ghostbusters (1989-1991)

Other than the fact that Slimer had taken the limelight late in the show's run, the visible lack of good episode writing was enough of a sign that it was time to put the show in the containment unit. One of the '90s episodes "Stay Tooned" (pictured above) was proof that the writers were trying too hard to make ghosts now. Seriously, a thunderstorm causing cartoons to come out of Ray's TV?

Mr. Bogus (1991)

It's funny that I mention this one first because nobody ever seems to talk about it these days. I still remember it for being so bizarre. The concept of the show revolves around this yellowish creature thing that interacts with household objects and the animation changes from 2D cels to claymation. It sounded like it was on par with Bump in the Night, but I just couldn't get into a show that has a main character that grumbles and makes other noises instead of talking.

Land of the Lost (1991 series)

I know there's probably a select few who may disagree with me, but at the time of the show's airing on Nickelodeon I just couldn't bring myself to like this despite having a dinosaur in it and the beginning of the whole dinosaur craze of the '90s. Maybe it was just my attention span being that of a tyke and that I just found it a bore to watch a live action show with episodes running at a slow, steady pace.

The Wacky World of Tex Avery (1997)

I think it's obvious to many that this really has nothing in comparison to the humor of Tex Avery's original cartoons, so when I went from seeing the classics to this show, I knew something felt a bit off. What I wasn't aware of at the time, given my youth, was that Avery passed away nearly 30 years before this show was made. The only saving grace was for it in my opinion was Billy West providing as a voice, and he did a great job on his part. But the rest of the show was just so shallow, and the theme song didn't help.

Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain (1998)

Since 1998 was the year when anime would begin coming into bloom on Kids WB (thanks to Pok'emon), Animaniacs got cancelled and the WB studio's last ditch effort was to make a spinoff of sorts featuring Elmyra from Tiny Toon Adventures. They kept the two laboratory mice in her home. This might sound like a neat idea on paper, but the execution felt so flat that I was actually looking forward to a different show to watch, it was that bad.

The Three Friends and Jerry (1999)

Remember Fox Family? This was one of the less memorable cartoons that aired during its heyday (at least in my opinion). The story of the show was about a kid named Jerry who tries to get along with three others who usually cause mischief. At the time of the show's airing South Park was already around and most of my friends labeled this show as a watered down South Park cartoon. It had its gross moments, but didn't hit that high mark like the show we were comparing it to.

Sonic Underground (1999)

With Sonic Satam getting cancelled, a third Sonic cartoon may have been too little too late, as the 2000s were drawing near. But rather than getting the same dark tones that Satam had, it softened up a bit more. And to make matters worse, a few other elements were sacrificed for the show's new ones. The members of the Freedom Fighters were now gone (including Sally and Tails) and Snively was replaced by two generic lackeys working for Robotnik who I called discount Bebop and Rocksteady. Lastly, replacing the Freedom Fighters were Sonic's supposed brother and sister, Manic and Sonia (Sonia also voiced by Jaleel White) and as a solution to get out of a hairy situation they bust out musical instruments. At this point I only watched like a couple of episodes at a time and barely remember much else, and wouldn't you know it, this show got cancelled too.

So how was my listing of these shows that I had little interest in? Leave a comment and as always, see you next article!

I didn’t tune in often enough to notice the difference in quality in later seasons of Ghostbusters, but the difference between Sonic Underground and it’s predecessor are as stark as can be. I much preferred the richer storylines and more serious tone. Sonic Underground was a huge step back. Sonic X was a good palette cleanser later on.